Those that frequent the originating web site for these GemLights, www.sapphirestreams.com, might have noticed that the previous devotional was not published on Tuesday, but a day later. Well, the GemLight was written and all set to go, but my Internet service provider was not.

Just after 1 PM last Tuesday, I noticed that I could no longer navigate anywhere on the Internet. We have a small network here, so I tried another computer, but still was unable to navigate. So, I gave Verizon a call.

After navigating through their computerized telephone questions (which gives me an idea for another GemLight), I was surprised to hear there was no recording indicating that there was an outage. Instead, a technician came on the line.

I explained to him everything was fine until just after 1 PM and I suspected they had an outage. To sort of convince him to tell his colleagues there might be trouble, I told him that Verizon has outages at least once a year.

He had a line test ran on my line and he said it looked like there could be an outage in the area, but they would have to wait for more folks to call in to help them make sure.

I do not know how all of this works with DSL, but I was sort of surprised. I was thinking that somewhere they had equipment that would give an indication that something was not right.

Each time something like this happens, it reminds that though we humans are becoming technically advanced in communications and other areas, we are still quite fragile. Whatever we build is not perfect and is faulty as we are.

Then I take great solace in that this is not so with God. He is always there. At His end, the lines of communication remain open to us. There’s no outage on the Holy Spirit or His Word. The only time there an outage occurs is when there is something wrong at our end caused by our sin in action or mind.

Look at Psalm 139:7: “Whither shall I go from thy spirit? or whither shall I flee from thy presence?” As you see, God is always there, no matter where we go, and surely He is not deaf. If we ever sense a spiritual outage, it has to be us.

Thankfully with His help there is no outage that we have that He cannot correct, if we let Him. And, it is a great comfort to know He is always aware of us and our needs. Trust Him today, and all times.